Season Sum up
by Lynthrocropia
Summary: Moby Jones tells his version of the first SSX season.
1. Default Chapter

There is always something that goes wrong. Always. C'est la vie. 

C'est la vie... French. I speak it, rather decently. The king proper, speaking French. Than again, bloody hell, we have a queen now. C'est la vie. Its the life. Makes me bloody well think of JP.

So here I am again, in the hospital room. Unfamiliar ceiling. I chuckle at that. Kaori was insistent for us to learn Anime when we went in for the Snowdream run last season. Hiro established it when he went out and bought all of us complete dvd sets in Tokyo. Evangelion was the one most of us picked, when they would come in bickering after the daily brief and demand we watch a show. I suspect it was because of the quiet parts...

Right well. My name is Moby, Moby Jones. I suppose if your reading this, you've spent your precious money to buy this. The official SSX season finisher. 

I didn't get to write about the first one. Nope. Why ? Simple, mate. I was unconscious. 

So now, lemme tell you all about it. There was me, and there was Zoe, and others. I recall Hiro, and Jurgen. The way it works is that we were all recruited to try this new thing. Elise, Mac, and such. I was fresh off the bmx circuit and suddenly legal in the United States, something I had really been looking forward to. The officials approached me in Canada. I was a bit suspicious. I mean, hey, I had just been drinking my arse off, so what was I to not be paranoid. 

"Is this about that time I tricked off of the queen's limosiune in my opening circuit ?" I had to ask, swaying around in the snow. Snow seemed odd to me. I had, after all, spent the day first riding around inside the areana which is hot and dusty, than going into a hot and dusty bar, drinking untill my mouth became hot and dusty. I auctually welcomed the snow.

"No, Mr. Jones" the tall guy said. The use of the name freaked me out. "We're hear to talk to you about signing a contract for an extreme winter sport. Through the fact that you did have the audacity to trick off of your monarch's vehicle a few years ago does come a high recognition for my backers"

"um.. Right. ...Mr. Jones is in Bristol right now, you know. I'm Moby, but I'm sure that my pap won't mind one bit if I do the bonebreakers stead of him" I had earlier that day discovered Mr. Jack Daniels. 

"Happily Mr. Jones. If you just sign this contract here, we'll have our men pick you up tommarow and bring you to training camp." The guy said. 

"Alright, but I'm telling you, I'm not Mr. Jones, I'm Moby" a month later that bloke came out with 'Play' and I became Mr. Jones. I signed the contract and they left, I stumbled back to my hotel room. 

The next morning, the grunts arrived like they had every other morning after an event. They gathered my stuff, and we walked out into the bus. Well. They walked. I sort of stumbled, but they seemed used to it, so. We arrived at the airport, and I woke up. One of the grunts gave me a nurser and advice on how to deal with hangovers, in a very nice quiet voice too. From thence on, I wondered around, looking dazedly at my ticket.

That went well, actually. Ok, so I stumbled up to a nice gel and asked her to direct me towards my gate. She said sure, and lead me to it, smiling happily. The nice gel happened to be a model who was quite used to other celebrities being drunk. Well, anyway, that's when Elise dragged me onto the plane.

I knew right than that something was up. Defiantly not what I expected. I expected a dungy plane that was full of my mates heading to the home camp for dismissal. Instead, there was a private plane. I wondered what the hell was going on. Elise pushed me from behind, and I stumbled into a seat. 

I landed on JP. He muttered something in French, and the good old school training from when our teacher used to let us cuss each other out in foreign languages kicked in. Like being called a dumbass in French is an insult. 

I managed to find my own seat, and JP went his own way also. I sat next to Jurgen. He said "Hallo" and I said " 'lo"

Than I went back to sleep. 

The private jet took us south, to Utah, and than to Japan, circling the globe towards France. That's when we reached the SSX headquarters. 

I had just gotten off the plane with the rest of them, thereby cured of any hangover on the long trip. As we got off, I counted them. Hiro and Kaori, Elise and Mac, Jurgen and JP, and Zoe. I was surprised, as I must have slept through some of the introductions. Oh well. That's when we went into the building at the end of the run way. 

The guy in the suit was there, waiting for us. "Welcome, my boarders. Your gonna be the new superstars of the extreme sports!"


	2. chapter 2

Turns out the bloody git was a millionaire who's son had banned from bmx and started doing the same tricks on the Elysium. 

The guy's son had moved on through, grown up and broken both legs. I should've known something was up right than and there, but nope. Anyway, after the son had recovered, he had been banned from boarding by the doctors. So, he went and gathered some locals for him to watch. 

ESPN comes along, asks if they're qualified for a show. They of course aren't. The guy through, he's bloody rich, you know. So he decides to gather up riders, and see if he can get ESPN Coverage. 

There was a catch. We couldn't be boarders before we were signed up.

So where did he look ? Same place he found me. Elise who was a model trying anything. Zoe, a downhill mountain biker. Jurgen, a backwoods skier who had more than once crossed the border to do Elysium on two boards stead of one, Kaori a funky skateboarder from Tokyo, etc. It was only October, and the season officially started with thanksgiving in America, but we were there anyway.

The reason was simple enough. Elysium is high. Very high. It stays frozen, no matter what. Its on one of the highest mountains in the world. It had gotten frozen somehow, we don't know, but it didn't melt. At all. The crowds were supplied with Oxygen, and it was pressure pumped in vital areas so we didn't suffocate. 

Well. we were given boards based on our personalities, what could be attributed to wet suits with our designs from other sports on them, and told to perfect our 'mad cap skills'. That's a quote too.

What fallowed was a painfull experiance in which I made Zoe and Elise look at my arse. A lot. The only problem was Mac was faster than I, and if your not the lead dog...

I ended up staying behind a lot. JP and me would ride easy in the practices and talk. Well, insult each other. Jurgen would talk nicely with me. And than, there would be those days we would race like hell.

The holiday came. We started filming snatches of clips from practice runs. They would show pan-overs of the other courses, some still being built. ESPN began showing the vignettes and mentioning a 'Christmas surprise' for the extremist. We started doing voice recordings so that when we would do in air commentary on our game, people would recognize us. 

It started with Hiro. He would exclaim the mighty wind spirits. Than JP would talk about the bountifull fall. Jurgen would talk about the power and edging. Than I would go on, and say something bout the style only an athlete like me would have. 

The commercials were detailed with silhouettes. They showed Kaori and Elise criss crossing in the air with Zoe zigging beneath them and jumping when they landed.

For the boy's, it had the 5 of us riding in a diamond pattern. I got lead, and would duck. Mac would jump over me, and Jurgen and JP would switch around. Hiro would pull up besides me, and we would do a side rotation flip away from each other in time for Mac to jump back and do a grab mutation. He never landed it, as it froze and just our black silhouettes would be boarding. 

Soon, ssx logo's began appearing on boards in shops. People didn't see any connection at all. 

Than came the day. ESPN put aside the Christmas football. It told people we were its present to the world. I called my Pap and told him a merry Christmas, and got on my gear. Than I went out. Elise was the first to be introduced. As a model, it came natural to her. She went out and put on the nice pouty look, and explained it all.

Than it panned to me. I was up.

"This is Jones, Moby Jones. I'm here, you bloody gits!" I said, opening with my line from the bmx showoff circuit. Ratings went up when a pre-established extreme star was a spokesman. "I'm here for you, and I'm missing a good old Christmas dinner with me mum and pap, So you'd best enjoy this." I paused, looking around and grinning like a maniac. I was in what appeared to be my bmx gear. I clapped my hands together "Right now. I bet your all just wondering what on earth I'm doing here, and more importantly, where here is." JP walked past and told them where we were, exactly, in French. Elise made a show of shoving him out of the camera. "Well, You still don't know where we are, mates. You may have a guess, but what it is, well. Your the guesser. Me, I'm just here to give you a bloody good show. Me and my Mates, that is. Now, the first person to guess where I am, gets a free item in the bloomin post." I said. Thats when Mac crashed through the skylight on his board. 

"Yo, yo yo! Hold your head high, and listen to the sounds, cause here we go" He said, his voice blending with Ryzel's, our DJ for the track. We all affized our head gear, and in the night sky, went out into the Elysium.


	3. chapter 3

Elysium: From Greek Mythology, the area of the underworld reserved for the highest among society. Akin to later religious versions of heaven.

Elysium: Fun. That's what Elysium is to me, mates. Now, Stark'll be telling you that its his favorite, and I can concur. The thingo is, mates, that the Elysium Stark rides today is not the Elysium that we rode that Christmas night. 

Normally, Elysium is not to be riden except in the brightest of light. There are dangerous curves, and sharp jabs of ice that have gone through steel boards when they were putting up the advertisements. So of course, us intelligent boys and girls we were, voluntarily did the course at night. The lighting was pretty decent, and there was cushy steel fences to keep us from going out of bounds. Whenever there would be a crash, the camera would pan away for a nice bit.

I don't know what the others did. I started off, well. Scared. Riding the Elysium at day is one time, but the course at night, that was a bloody different thing, pal. Still, I went with the pack. When the others were coming to the place where we would all do the introductory jump, I saw that JP was also hanging back a bit. Well, we just couldn't have that uppity frenchy outdoing good old Moby Jones. 

I jumped. 

Honestly didn't mean to.

I kicked out. I was trying to grab something, anything, as the abyss looked up at me and I swear, the bloody thing called for me to drop. So I kicked out. 

Earlier, Kaori had spun around, a funky way. She had accidently kicked off both her bindings, and reached out to grab them, spinning around in a flip as she connected. 

I, however, had done my simple kick out, directly in front of the camera. To the millions of home viewers who were watching, it appeared as if I had tried to kick of my board and die. Instead, I reattached it and landed with a hard dump, and than jerked ahead again. 

S T to rock around to rock around

Anyway, my doing that sparked the world. People said that I had done the first of those tricks ever, which isn't true. I had just done one of the first ever. Kaori did the very first. I had seen it, but the camera captured me, so I got the publicity. They made shirts of it, me in the army of noise outfit kicking at the camera with one boot, and sold 'em throughout the season. There's a new year's picture of me Mum and Pap holding out that very board while I stood behind em both, with all of us wearing that shirt.

Elise was not pleased.

The devolper, however, loved it. He had hundreds of rails set up that could be taken down really fast, and decided to have a totally different venue than the racers. 

On new years, it was anounced we would be going to Japan to start the series during the Superbowl halftime show.

Right mates. No pressure. 


	4. snowdream: racech 4

Snowdream.

A dream of snow. Its an excellent course, got some wicked jump opertunities you never seem to get anywhere else.

well, bloody behooval of hell, it was an excellent run and scary as such too. Hm.

The first thing that happened was we were distributed. A whole week of a climatation, and we weren't aloud to see the course. Ryzel tried to sneak us into his blimp mix station, but we got caught going up the gondola. There were a few of us who considered climbing the wires, or even grinding them to the destination to get a map of the course. We couldn't climb through. Too much security. We wouldn't be fast enough. 

Throughout the entire bloody thing, Hiro smirked. I knew something was up with that guy. 

We weren't aloud to board outside. They had plenty of dry courses, tottally artificial, to warm up on. Still, I didn't like it when I had to give up my board. That they had the audacity to keep me from using my proper equipment until I had unlocked it, well. Bloody vagabond stipulation. I'm me own man, mate. But sometimes, I'm the bloody monkey for the adminstration.

Right, well. This is the official way it went down. 

We were given a live broadcast window of 25 minutes, with 5 minutes for commercial. So there we were. None of us were really paying attention to the game. We were lifted in a gondala, and told to race the race. A race was supposed to take approximately 4 minutes, with breaks in-between for commercial and those who advanced to ride back to the top. 

We were given headsets. Everyone of us spent the time looking out the window. We had to guarantee a win, we were sure. The first medal of the season. I knew from my BMX runs that it was great to win an opening medal. Great for publicity, and great for moral. So we spent most of the time making notes amongst each other, like a hard angle here, a jump there. The headsets worked lovely for that.

"Riders, rider's riders. I'm gonna guide you through it, don't you worry now. Any request from the lovely Kaori for her home race?" Ryzel echoed in our ears. Kaori said something to Hiro in Japanese, and he responded. Than she spoke into the headset, and Ryzel said "affirmative" and the music started coming out. Each of us could decide whether or not to listen to the music, and I think most of us did.

Jurgen grunted, and moved us forward. I guess he took role of the bloomin leader cause of his fricken age, but Hiro seemed the one to fallow for this race. The countdown started. 

I suppose the proper thing to do is to rock back and forth. I just grabbed and pulled forword, lettin me body gather its momentum. Hiro seemed relaxed. I really was getting worried about that guy. No, not for him. I thought the git had something on the inside of his sleeve, you know. 

The first heat was. Well, it was something, mate. Hiro pulled away, right forward, and snaked the curve. The camera was on him, and me and Kaori weren't far beyond. Hiro charged for the jump, right as Ryzel told us about the airborne opportunity. I was too busy edging out a minor rut to do a proper jump, so I figured I wouldn't go for it that time. I crested the cliff and found the incline full of untread snow, so I glided nice and easy. Very nice and easy, as I glided right beneath Hiro. I had to duck, and another shot of me was born. Hiro also got license for it, the stupid git, so I can't really claim it. The scene is me ducking as his backside tail crests over my head as he is about to release his method. Argh, it hurts me head just thinking about it. Bloody awfull, to be banged headfirst by a full body weight into the snow.

I shook it off. 

The rest of the race went by pretty fast. I finished 4th. Last place, buckaroo. Bloody. 

Still, I had a gimme, so I was shuffled up for the semi-finals. By this time, my blood was boiling. I was full out ready to go. The race was with me, Mac, Jurgen and Jp. MM and Double J. Bloody field day the football announcers had with that as we were shown on the big screen in the stadium. I managed to steal the gold. Bless the bloody fool who had me race before the other racers. Mac managed to snag my drag, and as he road my tails, we finished first and second, qualifying for the final race.

We were given time to rest, breathe, you know. Well, I spent the time looking at Hiro. Mac wasn't so egotistical than. We were still going cool. I told him that it would be good if we fallowed Hiro and tried to pull ahead. He nodded. I bloody well expected the bugger to push me aside near the end, but hey. That's the way you do things. I was very fricken ready and well to push him too. 

The commercials finished, and we had our final race. 

That race was a blooming blur. All of one thing and too much of another. I vaguely remember Mac hitting the fence when Hiro hit him. I had to veer off of my gold medal track for it, and Kaori just went straight ahead. She got the silver and Hiro got the gold. Still, I got a medallion, eh ? I was just glad it was over, I think.


	5. chapter 5

After Mac got up of his own free will, we walked back towards the hotel. The bus took us there. 

"You were right, Mobes" Mac said, rubbing his shoulder as we leaned against the cool vinyl of the bench. "Hiro really knew that course good. I think he knew it a little... Too good"

"_Treason_" JP hissed in French. 

"You been listening in on us, Jean?" Mac asked.

"Oui" he said. "He knew the course.. a little... too well, methinks" JP responded, scooting closer, adding body heat to our bundle on the chilled bus. I nodded.

"I think Hiro had seen the course before. We don't know all the short cuts or anything, and he didn't fallow them. I think he could tweak some air out of those hills through. If he does, he done it before, cause one couldn't tweak some of dem wit'out past experience." I said.

"I say we don't blow the whistle yet. We let him do well enough. Than we koup him at the Elysium, where he won't be protected by his countrymen." JP suggusted.

"I got that down than. We watch da foo at the show-off tommarow. He should go first, sense he got the gold." Mac said. We nodded, and than the boy leaned his head back, letting his exhausted body sleep.

"_You auctually have honor, you english pig. You could have run over Mac and claimed the silver_" JP hissed to me in French.

"I'm not so anxious for a medal of that ranking. Seems to me, mate, only a continental bastard woulda thought of running over a boy" I responded, looking deep into his Aryan eyes. 

"I resent that" Jurgen said from across the bus. Jp and I looked at the older german man with surprise. Jurgen simply leaned back and stomped out his feet, stirring Mac. He settled down with a low rumble of "hnhnhnhnhnhnhn". 

Finally, the bloody bus got off the road, and we were settled into the hotel. I walked off, figuring Mac would get off on his own. Noooo. The bloody brat. He'd fallen all asleep. The bus started to drive off. Just great. A yank in Japan. I ran after the bus and flagged it down. After I got on, I tried to wake Mac up. Nope. He was stone asleep. So I had to pick the git up, and walk off the bus with him. Good thing he was all nice and lightweight. Now, before you all get this image of the chiveroulous st. moby George jones of England, I'll have you know I dropped him in the nearest snowbank. Apparently, this didn't do anything. So after digging him out of the snow, I THAN proceeded to carry the teen to the hotel. Damn bus, going so far from it. After I got to the corner with the pool, I found that the pool was right out front. After aproaching it, Elise opened the door.

Wow.

Elise is a model, after all.

I walked in, still carying Mac. JP yelled something about me finally finding the perfect match. I woulda bit my thumb but, well, I was still holding Mac.

"I dropped the bloke in the snow to wake him up" I told them, maneuvering to the pool's lip.

"Good Job, Moby" Jurgen said from the hottub he was soaking in to relieve his tensed muscles from the race that day. 

"Right. Well, the little bloke could survive frozen water. Lets see about lukewarm" I said, dropping the skater into the drink. I turned around, and a second later, a hand pulled me into the mix.

"WATCH YOUR BACK, JACK!" Mac half screamed, half caughed at me. I stood up, indignant. I vainly tried to brush some of the water off, a show more than anything.

"I'm not named Jack, Mac. Through if you wish to use such as my title, I shall go by Union" I said, wading towards the younger man. 

"Union!?! What da hell you talking about, Jack" He said, advancing towards me in his water soaked sweatshirt. 

"Exactly. My title shall be Jack. Union JACK!" I yelled, Slamming my hands flat against the water, creating a small wave that struck my young companion.

He half laughed, half roared a challenge, and tackled me in the water. My suit was pretty solid, and waterproof to boot, so I didn't mind going under, that much. We commenced to splashing each other quite profoundly. Jurgen laughed, his heavy voice echoing in the steamy room. Elise giggled, causing Mac's young hormone driven self to stop for a moment and stare. She almost noticed, but I saved him from being caught by dunking him beneath the water's surface. Honestly, I did it for his own good. 

"Hey! You two stop that!" Kaori screeched loudly. 

"Ah, 5 more minutes!" I said, before going under from Mac's pressure. I responded by tossing his light frame in the air, where he landed with a tidal wave of a smack. 

"Its nice that you two are so happy with this, but please, save the foreplay for later. I don't believe that this country approves of such rascling displays of affection in public." JP said, swimming by. 

Mac paused. I stopped.

"You know, Jean-Paul, one begins to think things when all a person does is talk about two males involved in invigorating activities" Hiro said, as he walked from the room's interior entrance towards the hot-tub. 

"Er...Right. What he said." I seemingly mewed. Mac just flipped the Frenchman off.

"No, no mate. Not like that. In Europe, its all about this" I said, making a thumb's up at JP, than biting on my nail. 

"No, no. For the piggly French" Jurgen said, begining to wade into the pool, "Its this" He motioned, clapping his left arm onto his right bicep, raising his right hand into a fist.

JP looked around at all of us, before hissing.

"Go to hell" He said. "_Go to hell and burn_" He repeated in French. He began to swim laps violently.

"Et, tu. Brute" I said, before stalking out of the pool. I towled off best I could, and stalked towards my room.


	6. chapter 6

After a warm shower and a change of clothes, from my form fitting suit to a good comfy set of bedcloths, I ordered out, ate a nice warm meal of noodles, and dropped into bed, it still not dark.

I woke up the next morning when Zoe banged on my door. Odd that she was up so early. I thought. Turned out she had crashed right when we got to the hotel and had been wondering around the hotel since 4 am. 

"Come on, Moby. Lets go do something" she yelled, banging on my door. 

"It's seven in the blooming mornig" I mutterdly yelled, after looking at the clock. I had been having a nice dream about Elise and her swimsuit too.

"I've been up for three hours, Mobes" she yelled, knocking agian.

"she's an intelligent gel" I said to myself, stumbling to the door. I opened it, a funky punk boarder waiting on the other side.

"Oh Moby! How cute! Sheep pajamas" She said

I closed the door. 

"Oh Moby! how uncute! Closing the door on me! Come on! lets do something!"

"like shut up" I told myself, pulling on a clean rider's suit. I slipped into my shoes and opened the door. "Coffee?" I asked the american rider.

"You mean, like. Outside of the hotel?" she asked. 

"Yeah... We'll jog to the shop, drink up, and come back. That should be about the time they collect us" I said.

"Moby...where's your accent?" She asked me.

"Whatda?" I said.

"..it just. wasn't there for a bit"

"a bit ? Whatdya mean, wasn't there? 'taint an accent. Its me, me, and me blooming voice!" I said "You must really need some bloody coffee, mate"

"...right. Ok Moby. I'll race you to the shop" She said, before bounding off. Now, I think as a guy, I could have easily pulled ahead and beaten her to the shop. However, as a guy, I had a bloody good reason not to. I had a bloody good reason, and she had a bloody nice arse. 

The coffee wasn't really necessary. The run along the dry path surrounded by all the snow was what really woke me up. That and Zoe's a... Right. Well, anyway, we got the coffee from the all purpose little shop, drank it up, and walked back. Zoe kept teasing me about beating me, but I just was smug. Who really got the victory, right ?

We got back to the hotel at 8, so it had been a good hour. Everybody else was up, even Mac, who was still sore from the fence and groggy from everything else. Some official walked in, and told us to go to the rooftop gondola. After we got there, we started the long ride to the top of the mountain, and the top of the course. Mac groggily looked at me, than at Hiro. I fallowed his gaze, and nodded. JP also did. Than, the gondola stopped. 

"Lets get you some coffee, Mac" JP said, his thick accent even thicker, indicating he was also tired. I fallowed the two to the food area of the lodge, and we all ordered a small coffee. I blew on mine, while JP talked about watching Hiro. Mac chugged his coffee, finishing the cup of his last drop. He stood up to get more, and I slid my untouched beverage across the table. He mumbled a thanks, and began to chug that cup as well. JP took a deep drink.

"I'll watch him, see if he can pull any of the opening tricks off the ramp. You gits through, watch the TV. You see anything on the later spot, talk to me over the heady, got it?" I said. They nodded, and I stood up, going to collect my board and inspect its waxing for that morning. 

The show started at 10, and it was about 9:15, near as I could tell. Hiro was standing alone, by himself, and his body language was screaming for him not to be disturbed. I looked at him, and he looked at me. I'm pretty sure I gave him a damn evil look, cause the stupid get gave me one. I shook my head and went to the rack, cycling it towards my niche. I punched in my number, and the board popped out. I looked at it. There was a long scratching in the wax from the niche. Somebody had jerked the damn rack around. I huffed, and swung the board over my shoulder. I looked at it one more time, shook my head, and went to find a tech. 

Hiro walked up to the rack, I saw in the unblemished part of the waxing. The board was shiny except that one place where it had been clamped down. He punched in his number and got out his own board. 

"Kuso" I heard him yell out. I also heard Kaori chattering at him in Japanese. He replied something, and I heard the rack unlock again.

"Kisama!" Kaori said. Soon, I was being fallowed by half the boarders, all armed with thier damaged board. I found a tech, and he looked at the damage, wide-eyed. He sighed, and we all put our boards down on the carpeted section. Jurgen growled for them to be ready by 10, making the tech curse as well in Japanese. 

After that wonderful experience, I looked at my watch. It was 9:30, and there was no way. I dragged the other blokes towards the rack, and we all went to the tech.

"Look, mate" I explained, "Fix the native's boards first. Hiro's, than Kaori's, than mine, than Mac's. Check the roster, and fix em in that order" I finished. He nodded, and proceeded to work on Hiro's board. I found Koari waiting, watching some skiers on a different track from ours, and asked her to take as long as possible on her showoff, so to give the bloke more time to work on them. She said she would, and than ran off to chitter at Hiro about it.

At 9:45, Mac showed up, bouncing around. "Hey, Mobes! I was over there and I heard Hiro say he would go the limit to give the guy time to fix it!" He said, than bounced away to find the others and report the good news to them. I shook my head at the git. He shouldn't have put all that suger in his coffee. I went and watched the bloke in the shop work for a bit, than went to the gate. I scooped up some of the snow from the edge and felt it. The snow was dry. I had learned from Jurgen that dry snow made you go fast, so the boards would only need a slight layer of wax.

I went to the shop again. The tech was putting a third layer of wax on Hiro's board. That's when I told him what condition the snow for the course was. He looked up, and muttered something into a walkie-talkie. After a response, he seemed to nod. Than he re-directed his attention at me.

"Thank you for your input. They have gone to inspect the snow at later track points. I'll just leave Hiro's board as it is. Go and tell your fellow rider that his is ready" he said, shoeing me away from his work.

I smiled as I walked away. Luck seemed on my side, highly that day. 

I told Hiro, and the git just said a "hn" towards me. I shrugged as I walked away, going to inspect the now empty rack. I shook my head at the sharp teeth that bit down on the board to keep it from jostling. Damn stupid of the blokes who did that job. 

Hiro showed up at the gate, I noticed. He put down his board and scraped the snow on its top, and latched on his boots. The announcer came on, and went to the fence, recently vacated by Kaori as she had gone to inspect her board. 


	7. snowdream showoff 7

The showoff crystals you see, mate, are what scientists call hard light. Pretty much, it means they're holograms that have dimension. All I know is that we didn't want to snag them at first.

Right. Who in their bloody right mind would want to slam into something that was just floating in the air, and looked cunningly like shiny painted steel. 

Well.... besides Zoe. 

Hiro took off, and zoomed down the course. He was damn fast, of course. He made it to the first jump and did a flying squirrel. Maximum air trick. He let go of it and swung away from the yellow crystal, which we were quite sure would smush him as we watched on the monitors.

I'll let it be said here and now, there were plenty of disappointed sounds when he did dodge it. He scored 360. That was out of a thousand. Hiro didn't even place. He still managed to score well, and pull off every trick he could with his amount of adrenaline. He scored an overall 5th. Out of eight. 

Kaori went next. Speaking of a nice ars... Oh. right. Sorry. She placed third. I didn't watch her, as I was busy getting for my own run. 

My own run... I took off the first ramp, and did a Spaghetti 360. They don't allow Spaghettis on the Tricky circuit, because it was deemed 'to dangerous' Tell this to Pysmon, who tries to decapitate himself for his ubertrick. What can I say. its management. 

The board was doing nicely. They had patched the wax space with a solid tube, and than just shaved off the entire thing but for the base layer with a superheated cutter. Fused it all nice and neatly. Did they circular grind, and even added some speed grooves for me. I love those bloody things. 

I landed and tried to edge my way around the corner, and barely managed to. Would have destroyed my balance if I hadn't scrapped the snow with my hand. That was a negative 10 points. hmph. I made it up with a back flip and than a switch rotation, but it still hurt my pride that I hadn't just taken the fall and recovered than palpably taking off of my score. Made it to the big jump grounds, through, and pulled off every single grab I could think of. Got my score near the mark for bronze, but didn't. I, Moby 'stupid git' Jones, therefore received the fourth placing. 

Mac went next. He pulled off everything I did, and than some. did a ducking double back flip to flying squirrel to avoid the red, and an inverted mute to avoid the orange. But he didn't avoid barely snagging the yellow, which multiplied his points. I don't think anyone noticed. I sure as hell didn't. Bloody hell, through, when he was told he had the highest score, that boy was happy. Till, um. We patted him on the back. oops. Stupid Hiro. Stupid me. Stupid bloody fence. Oh well. Mac was sure as hell happy with the gold medal around his back.

Through I'll be damned if it didn't make the bloke bend a little bit from its weight. 

Zoe went next. I guess she had seen him snag the yellow, cause she did a combo and snagged the red. Did less tricks than me, but got the silver.

Eh. Live, learn, and get them stinking drunk so they'll tell you their secrets.

That's right. That night, we established a new tradition as well.

Drinking dry several bottles of the local liquor. Damn, sake is spicy. You wouldn't think so, but... no. Spicy. Sweet. Like the orange stuff in Joe's Crab Shack. (Merqury City, if your wondering) only highly alcoholic. 

The legal drinking age in Japan is 18. We lied about Mac and Hiro claimed guardianship of Kaori. The bouncer couldn't tell about Mac, what with the fact that nobody and nobody could tell how old an American was that wasn't of our party. 

We actually learned a lot of things that night. Like never chase Sake with Soy sauce. Like Elise hates clothing when she's drunk. Mac _will _get a nosebleed if he sees a supermodel topless. and, JP can break dance better than a black guy.

Well... _I _was drunk. Not to mention, I divided my time between the west Indies and Bristol. and the hills of BMX and Snowboarding. So why would I care, right ? 

Besides the bloody fact I'm a buffoon who was righteously drunk and there is an ingrained rivalry between the French and British. The fact that Jurgen called us both Pussies did NOT help. 


	8. plains, caffines, and chapter 8

Have you ever watched a bruise develop ? I mean, really watch it ? Over the course of 12 hours, there's not much to do, except, of course, sleep and watch a bruise form. 

That's what happens when you wake up at 10 am. Its a foreign country. There's a teammate who you drank under the table last night, and he's arguing with the owner of... um. Apparently it's a bloody karaoke bar.

That sure as hell explained why JP wasn't thrown out for singing _Like A Virgin _the previous night. Well that and everybody else was busy crossing their legs and throwing Yin at Elise, who was drunk. I did mention that Elise likes to go Topless when she's drunk, right ? Well. she does. No, its not like she's an exhibitionist (Well... actually, if ye consider it, she is a model in the off season...) its just that she hates the feeling of cloth after the alcohol reaches that part of her noggin. Nothing wrong with that (not at all. Me and the other boyos used to chip in and buy her a different alcoholic drink every week, back before the entire Girlfriend thing... different chapter)

So your sitt..er... laying there, on the bench. There's a yank gel sprayed out oh so nicely on your legs, and there's a Canadian girl sprayed out, topless, to boot, on top of the table. There is a jacket covering her, and there's an old German guy sitting in the booth next to you, and he looks just about ready to throw a Yesibu bottle at the next bastard who says anything above 4 decimals. 

So of course, like a sensible person, I keep my happy west indie ass shut. Let it be said that the British (I'm half, due to me mum) are smarter than the French. 

"Je ne me pas leve!" Jean-Paul has to go an exclaim, apparently due to Kaori groggily poking him in the side to move over. 

The bottle makes an elegant arc, and bounces right off of JP's shoulder, harmlessly. The Frenchman glares at the German. The German snarls at the Frenchman. The British man calmly reaches out and flicks the Frenchman's ear. I point down to the lasses. Both of them stop and grumble to themselves. Elise moans. Mac, who is somehow beneath the table, sits straight up.

BONK

Somehow, we got out of there in time. Our stuff was already packed without our approval. We were hustled onto the plane, still in our gear from yesterday. They fill the need to supply us with more coffee than I thought existed. I was under the impression you just drank what came from a filter. They had that. and something with cream... and something with honey... and... 

Three different hard to pronounce coffee's and two different kinds of hot tea from stewardess later, I was quite awake. As I had been quite awake from 5 beverages, Mac (who was from the lesser slopes of Merquery City) had been very well awake after 10 of the free beverages. 

Never, never, combine a hyper 15 year old with enough caffeine to power a construction crew and an enclosed airplane cabin. Its the equivalent of releasing your Monty Python DVD to people who think knock-knock jokes are funny. The flying circus, for your information, was not very funny. 

I was ignoring the bouncing bundle of energy we used to call Mackenzie, and watching a large bruise form on Zoe's forearm. 

Zoe apparently was raised by violent kung-fu feminist, because when someone tried to grab Elise, she used a forearm tackle on the guys head and broke his table. Fortunately, everybody else thought this was funny, so we didn't have to brawl. Not that we wouldn't win, but still... losing to liqueur and being finished by drunken businessmen who wanted to have an arranged marriage of their sons to Kaori, would be humiliation, in the least. 

"Looks pretty bad" I finally said, after 6 hours. 

"mm...your pretty..." Zoe mumbled. Of course, I had to look up. My dreads bounced in my eyes. Just long enough for pride, short enough for the helmet. 

"Earth to Zoe" I said, waving my hand in front of her face. 

"... ..Moby?" Zoe said, and I realized that she had avoided the caffeine in order to make sure she didn't aggravate the wound. 

"No... Bond. James Bond. Her majesties secret service" I said. She was out of her daze by now and looked up at me with a grin. She had the prettiest smile... 

"You would make a great James Bond, Moby" she said, reassuringly. I personally thought she was right (*caugh caugh, wink wink,* MGM)

"well maybe... but only if you could be the girl" I said, flashing my pearly whites.

"Ah... how cute" Elise said

Mac, who had just than been digging in the overhead compartment for something, popped out his head. "Thanks, Elise" he said, with a very big, bright, honest smile. She just smiled reassuringly at him, than winked at us.

We talked the rest of the flight. Not mushy stuff. That would have certainly had Mac's attention. (Kaori got that) but about Bond. About our alternative sports. About brands of bikes. 

Of course, after I was done staring into her eyes for several hours, I was quite ready to move onto mushy. The only thing that saved me from making an inopportune mush moment was Hiro announcing we were back at the home camp, in France.

Elysium, freshly groomed, glimmered like the yeti through the clouds. 


	9. steaks, slopes

Well. Yeti don't glimmer. But then, you only really spot them in the distance. Particularly after a cold day of boarding and booze. Yes, we hit it. We hit the sauce hard, but then, we lived hard. I give no justice to drinking like we did in a normal life. You have anybody making jumps 40 feet high onto a sheen of ice that's not called a crimson grind for giggly shitfest, however, and they're not guilty. 

Elysium is what we like to think of as. Well. Its like your old high-school gym where you broke your ankle. Does that help ? 

Its like thanksgiving. Turkey day. Triptophen. Old friends, and dangers around every curve. At least thats what Mac says Thanksgiving is like. But then Elise says his thanksgiving consists of sodomizing a dead bird with bread stuffing.

I retorted that I'd been raised on Blood Pudding, among other things, so there was really nothing wrong with that.

Mac says its like Thanksgiving. I can't remember it without wincing. Unlike the rightous third place it now occupies on our Tricky Circuit, three seasons in, The original Season of SSX had the bone knawing rightous bitch of a mountain as a second course. I know it seems inane and out of it to say, mates...

But we've got it easy in Tricky. 

I dunno. Maybe it's me experience to it all.

Rahzel didn't know what this race was gonna be like, but he played it up well enough. I never met the guy, actually... I wonder if he doesn't exist anymore. Oh well. 

So as my estimed... Ah hell. As the other boarders jumped off the plane, I walked through it slowly. I wasn't about ready to smack her ass yet, but I was getting close. There's a fine line between nice freindship without flirting and heavy flirting to lip-locking to other things. 

'Ey, You. Punk. Your underage. Give this back to your older brother and get back to trying to pilfer his pulps from 'is pillow. 

I was hungry. There was Crapes. You know, there's not much more to be said about that.

It's rumored that I'm a bulimic, but really I've got a metabolism that makes me bounce. I was hungry. Coffee had pumped me up, but nothing beat Crapes.

You don't live in France for a month and not get onto crapes. Well, with that delectable fluffy crispy content.... oh right.

We jumbled into the center room of the townhouse. JP called his family and cursed at them. Apparently this was to let them know he was home. JP has had some problems. Probably why he turned out to be such a mean little bugger. Still. JP loves to show off. Showing off means Cognac instead of Brandy. Etc.

He had to show us the best restaurant he knew off, the owner who had apparently taken his brand of ruffiandry light-heartedly and saved JP's honor. That would also explain the remodeling that was why it was just now told to us. 

I. Love. the place. French people don't know steaks ? Oh no ? French people don't know proper proportions, but they know steaks. mm. The Cow could have been complaining out back, it was so fresh and tender. Another great thing about it was it was on the slope. The row of restaurants and bars lined the slope. The bars were across the street, in front of a hotel that lined a ridge, with a cul-de-sac running up the back of the mountain. We all ate the late lunch, ambled around the back, and ended up renting some cheap equipment from the hotel, gliding down the side of the mountain. Once there we just shackled ourselves to the mega lift that rose us 2000 feet in the air, coming to our "Home" for the SSX season, the private home's rented out from the Arsenault dynasty. 

But enough about food. 

Onto the Elysium Race.


End file.
